Warships, innovation and material culture in the Imperial Age: a focus on HMS Warrior (1860)

Buques de guerra, innovación y cultura material en la época imperial: el HMS Warrior (1860) en el punto de mira

Edward Owen Teggin

Universitas Diponegoro, Semarang
teggine@gmail.com

Recibido: 23/03/2024
Aceptado: 29/05/2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33732/RDGC.14.103

Abstract

This study investigates HMS Warrior (1860), the Royal Navy’s first ocean-going iron-hulled warship, positioning it as a pivotal zone of future naval innovation despite being the most advanced warship at its launch. Built in response to the French ironclad Gloire, Warrior’s design emphasised the British admiralty’s vision for increased mobility and manoeuvrability over traditional broadside engagements, heralding a new era in naval strategy and architecture. The ship’s design and service influenced the development of future warships, including monitor-style gun turrets and dreadnoughts. Utilising the National Museum of the Royal Navy’s archives, this study explores Warrior’s role as a “floating laboratory”, facilitating technological experimentation during its commission. The study also examines Warrior’s socio-political implications, considering her as both a defensive response to French naval expansion and a symbol of British naval dominance. Warrior’s construction was driven by geopolitical rivalry and financial, political, and societal factors, reflecting the broader context of European naval arms races and imperial ambitions. This research aligns with the material culture and history of technology fields, emphasising the intersection of technological innovation and cultural expression. The study extends to Warrior’s current role as a museum piece, critiquing its presentation and public engagement through the lens of Eugene Ferguson’s work on technological artefacts in museums. Ultimately, this study aims to recontextualise Warrior as a historical object and an active agent in naval innovation and strategy. Integrating interdisciplinary approaches highlights the dynamic interplay between technology, society, and culture, and reaffirms Warrior’s lasting impact on naval history and material culture.

Keywords
HMS Warrior, Naval Innovation, Power Projection, Imperial Rivalry, Arms Race.

Resumen

Este estudio investiga el HMS Warrior (1860), el primer buque de guerra oceánico de casco de hierro de la Royal Navy, situándolo como una zona fundamental de la futura innovación naval a pesar de ser el buque de guerra más avanzado en el momento de su botadura. Construido en respuesta al acorazado francés Gloire, el diseño del Warrior enfatizaba la visión del almirantazgo británico de una mayor movilidad y maniobrabilidad frente a los tradicionales combates de flanco ancho, anunciando una nueva era en la estrategia y arquitectura naval. El diseño y el servicio del buque influyeron en el desarrollo de futuros buques de guerra, incluidas las torretas estilo monitor y los acorazados. A partir de los archivos del Museo Nacional de la Marina Real Británica, este estudio explora el papel del Warrior como “laboratorio flotante” que facilitó la experimentación tecnológica durante su puesta en servicio. El estudio también examina las implicaciones sociopolíticas del Warrior, considerándolo tanto una respuesta defensiva a la expansión naval francesa como un símbolo del dominio naval británico. La construcción del Warrior estuvo impulsada por la rivalidad geopolítica y por factores financieros, políticos y sociales, reflejo del contexto más amplio de las carreras navales europeas y de las ambiciones imperiales. Esta investigación se enmarca en los campos de la cultura material y la historia de la tecnología, haciendo hincapié en la intersección de la innovación tecnológica y la expresión cultural. El estudio se extiende al papel actual del Warrior como pieza de museo, criticando su presentación y participación pública a través de la lente del trabajo de Eugene Ferguson sobre los artefactos tecnológicos en los museos. En última instancia, este estudio pretende recontextualizar el Warrior como objeto histórico y agente activo de la innovación y la estrategia navales. La integración de enfoques interdisciplinarios pone de relieve la interacción dinámica entre tecnología, sociedad y cultura, y reafirma el impacto duradero del Warrior en la historia naval y la cultura material.

Palabras clave
HMS Warrior, Innovación Naval, Proyección de poder, Rivalidad imperial, Carrera armamentística.

Esta obra está bajo una licencia internacional Creative Commons Atribución-CompartirIgual 4.0. CC BY

INTRODUCTION

It is perhaps a strange concept to propose that HMS Warrior (1860)¹, the Royal Navy’s first ocean-going ironclad warship, was itself a specific zone of naval innovation when she herself was the most advanced warship afloat at the time of her launch, to great fanfare, on 29 December 1860. Built in response to the aggressive shipbuilding program of the French navy in the 1850s, which culminated in the launch of the French ironclad Gloire on 24 November 1859, Warrior was a symbol of the British Empire’s desire to remain superior to the French at sea. As two of the leading colonial powers in Europe, any marginal gains in the balance of power, particularly at sea due to the importance of sea lanes to far-flung empires, were closely monitored by both sides. Whereas Gloire was a wooden-hulled armoured frigate, Warrior was the first iron-hulled warship. The launch of Warrior, seen below in Figure 1, made the significant progress in naval architecture applied to Gloire redundant overnight, with Warrior being superior in almost every aspect to her French rival. The innovation of Warrior was not, however, constrained to her physical composition but can also be understood in terms of her intended use. Whereas Gloire and other ships of her class were seen as replacements for traditional lineships, the British admiralty saw Warrior in terms of a highly armoured and mobile warship which would focus on manoeuvrability rather than traditional broadside naval engagements. As such, the result was a radical reimagining of naval architecture and the role which naval warfare could play further into the nineteenth century, particularly when considering the rival French colonial empire.

Warrior, her service and construction do, therefore, occupy a fascinating position in the history of naval technology in the long nineteenth century, with her design having important connotations for the development of monitor-style gun turrets and the breakthrough dreadnought-era of warships heralded by the launch of HMS Dreadnought (1906) on 10 February 1906. This, of course, ties Warrior to historical scholarship surrounding naval progress in the mid-nineteenth century, with studies by the likes of Oliver Walton and Mary Jones into naval discipline and organization, David Morgan-Owen and Louis Halewood into maritime strategy, and Don Leggett into maritime developments, laying out many of the key factors involved². Ordovini, Petronio and Sullivan, and Schenk, Nottelmann and Sullivan’s case studies of Italian and German battleships, particularly those dealing with pre-dreadnought and early ironclad ships during the period, have also provided much context to the pace, rivalry and technological advances which occurred throughout the process³. Similarly, Rahn and de Saint Hubert have given an overview of the German and Spanish cases, respectively⁴.

The rivalry which comes about due to naval arms races or the projection of power across the sea is also a very interesting concept, with Blagden, Levy and Thompson (2011: 192) concluding that such a projection of power is always to be considered hard. Whilst this shall be expanded upon below, it is worthwhile highlighting now due to the dual role of sea power as both backstop and means of invasion. Warrior, as the instrument of sea power or naval projection, can be thus seen as both a benign defensive construction in response to French threats, as well as the means to dominate the seas and commence an assault. This is something particularly important when considering far-flung colonial empires and is particularly relevant for the late nineteenth century, given the heightened rivalry between European colonial powers in Africa and Asia. Connected to this are also the struggles, financial, political and societal, which go into the construction of capital ships. This is something also picked up on by Alan Zimm (1975: 31-32) in his contention that all warships go through an extensive battle before they are even launched, with restrictions placed upon naval architects by politicians and state bodies complicating the process. Whereas the aim is supposedly to balance the concepts of speed, protection and firepower, what is often produced is a compromise based on limited resources. It is in this context that the essential role of innovation and experimentation aboard the vessel during its commission must be discussed.

It is common practice amongst modern naval architects and designers to leave space and capacity aboard new vessels for emerging technologies; the wisdom being that these could then be retro-fitted during a subsequent fitting-out or spell in drydock for the ship in question. Whilst it is acknowledged that such a practice is far more convenient in modern warships, the principle of allowing for technological development and the emergence of new methods was a stance which was also taken by the nineteenth-century navy. In the case of Warrior, the experimentation with an improved rudder design is a good example. This is something which shall be expanded upon below, but it is convenient to mention here as it ties in with the idea of Warrior, or potentially any other warship, as a floating laboratory which was designed to meet contemporary needs as well as to pave the way for future designs based on her service reports and statistics. To accomplish this, the current study will make use of the archive related to Warrior and Arthur Cochrane, her first commanding officer, held by the National Museum of the Royal Navy, Portsmouth. This collection includes letters, maps, reports, diagrams and material culture. In agreement with Carroll Pursell’s (1983: 304) assessment that technology can act as an expression of culture, this study fits within the fields of both material culture and the history of technology. This presupposes that the history of technology may act as a subfield of material culture, as per Schlereth’s (1982: xiii, 3) contention.

Warrior has, of course, been the subject of much scholarship and popular writing, with Andrew Lambert and Walter Brownlee, in particular, producing a great deal on the subject⁵. Due to this extensive background in the literature, this study does not seek to provide more information regarding the ship as a standalone object but rather to contextualize it as a specific zone or space in the naval and political world. This space, in collaboration with the officers and crew, it will be argued, had the potential for specific agency in developing new techniques and proposing innovations, and in projecting assumptions onto society. This does, naturally, suggest that Warrior, as an object, had agency. In this respect, the arguments of Christopher Tilley’s and Lieselotte Saurma-Jeltsch’s works, underlining such agency, are important aspects to discuss⁶. Regarding the human aspect, consideration must also be given to Warrior as a site of human innovation and existence, along with the preconditions for human sociation advocated by Georg Simmel (Frisby, 2013: 126). As we shall see, Warrior’s first commanding officer, Arthur Cochrane, had a key part to play in this respect.

THE QUESTION OF MATERIAL CULTURE AND EUROPEAN RIVALRY

Warships, as elements of material culture, offer insights into the social, economic, and ideological dimensions of the societies that produce and utilize them. At base, warships came into existence because there was a need on the part of certain powers or polities to make use of the sea for various purposes. There has almost always, by extension, been rival powers who sought to challenge that usage. In the context of the nineteenth century imperial consolidation in Africa, the Far East, and South Asia, British and French imperial rivalry fits this very well indeed. Ken Booth has written extensively on the multitude of roles and functions that a navy or maritime force could fulfil, ranging from policy objectives and operational tasks to the more direct diplomatic and military functions⁷. For the purposes of this study with Warrior in mind, however, there are two main considerations. Firstly, warships represent the materialization of technological knowledge and innovation. Throughout history, naval powers have invested heavily in the design and construction of warships to gain military superiority. The development of new propulsion systems, weaponry, and navigational instruments reflects the expertise and ingenuity of engineers, craftsmen, and naval strategists. By studying the design and construction of warships, researchers can trace the evolution of maritime technology and its impact on warfare and maritime trade.

Secondly, warships serve as symbols of power, prestige, and national identity. The size, firepower, and capabilities of warships convey messages of military strength and political influence. Naval fleets have historically been used to assert control over strategic waterways, protect trade routes, and project power overseas. Furthermore, warships reflect the social and cultural values of the societies that commission them. Within the context of empire, warships are, therefore, incredibly powerful signifiers. The construction and operation of warships require collaboration among diverse groups of individuals, including sailors, officers, shipbuilders, and suppliers. The hierarchical organization and discipline onboard warships mirror broader social structures and norms. Additionally, the material culture of warships encompasses the artifacts and rituals associated with naval traditions, such as ship christenings, naval ceremonies, and sailor superstitions. By analysing the design, symbolism, and social dynamics of warships, researchers can gain a deeper understanding of the interplay between technology, society, and culture throughout history.

Warrior also has important implications for the present day, now being a permanent museum piece at the historic dockyard in Portsmouth. Here, Warrior is open to the public as an attraction after a storied recent history. Following active service, she was placed into reserve in 1875 and finally decommissioned in 1883. Her period in reserve, however, did not necessarily mean that she was inactive. From 1856 onwards, the British Coast Guard was under the control of the British Admiralty and served as a form of naval reserve which combined military support as well as commerce defence (O’Sullivan and Downey, 2013: 30). The Coast Guard was later reestablished as a civilian organisation in 1923, with their focus then being on coastal safety and rescue. Listed for scrapping in 1924, she was eventually converted into a floating oil pontoon with the designation ‘Oil Fuel Hulk C77’. Over fifty years later, Warrior was transferred to the Warrior Preservation Trust and work was begun on her restoration at Hartlepool. Finally, in 1987, she was returned to Portsmouth for exhibition, where she remains to this day. Warrior’s status as a museum piece allows us to also engage with her in terms of the history of technology in the field of curation. Eugene Ferguson’s thoughts on the Hall of Power at the Museum of History and Technology, Washington D.C., are very intriguing in this regard. Ferguson critiqued the exhibition for producing a display that lacked engagement with the public, with his contention being that it was not enough to merely display an object. As per Ferguson (1968: 75-78):

A great museum should more than perpetuate the idea that machines are neutral because they can only do the bidding of men. Somehow it should be made clear that historically the potential of power has imperceptibly become an imperative.

As a result of this duty that Ferguson has charged museums with, it would fall upon them to ensure that they conducted a sufficient outreach and educational program to inform visitors of the wider contexts and agency if the mere object(s) were not sufficiently explanatory in themselves. This is an aspect which the curatorial staff at Portsmouth have done an excellent job with Warrior, tying her into the broader narrative of empire and the Victorian navy. In addition to the exhibition itself, the visitor webpages and availability of documents, maps and images from the Royal Navy Museum archive online, something which has opened up learning and discovery opportunities, provide ample means for an interested visitor or scholar to explore further. In utilising the potential of material culture to act as a storyteller in cases such as Warrior, there is, of course, the temptation to use such ‘voices’ of machines to tell a multitude of other stories. A curious change arises when we seek to transition from the heritage site, be it a museum or gallery, etc., and enter into the world of academic discourse, where there is already a tradition of viewing technology as an art form of itself. This is what Ferguson meant when he described the “elegant inventions” of science as art that guides the shape of the future.

For scholars of historical technology, the challenge is to decipher the specific cultural meanings extant in physical or material objects. The inventor, or perhaps more appropriately, the artist, decides upon a chosen form and limits the potential of the object within that shape. The object, in our case Warrior, becomes both the object of study and its own primary source material. Fortunately, however, we also have the wealth of archival evidence on Warrior contained in the National Museum of the Royal Navy through which to draw our conclusions. Whilst David Brown (2010: 12) has highlighted that it was the combination of technologies and Warrior’s particulars which made her a revolutionary vessel, the argument to be discussed in this study is that her construction and function at this particular time in history contributed a great deal more to European rivalry and arms races, as well as to imperial tensions, than her individual service history did. As a tool of naval projection, she could be seen as both a defensive bulwark and an offensive weapon. As noted above, this has much to do with her role as a zone of innovation and a tool in the experimentation of new technologies and techniques.

Despite the effects of her commission, the necessity for Warrior’s construction had little to do with the British Admiralty’s desire for a fleet of ironclad warships. It was the specific challenge, announced by the French construction of the ironclad Gloire and the fortification of the naval base at Cherbourg, that spurred the Admiralty into action. This, Robert Ross (2018: 14-16) sees in one respect as a curious move by the French navy given the comparative financial weakness of the French vis á vis the British. In terms of naval power projection, this can be seen as the French, specifically under Napoléon III⁸, attempting to challenge Britain’s position as a great power in colonial and military terms. Conversely, using the French navy also served as a status symbol in Napoléon’s nationalist agenda, with the armed forces comprising the core of his political support. In the context of Napoléon and the French desire for supremacy, Ross’ views on naval nationalism are of interest here. Ross contends that whatever the source of naval nationalism, it can have the impact of both encouraging expansionist naval policies, uniformed by strategic needs, as well as serving to undermine global security. This, in turn, could prompt unnecessary power struggles, wars or tension in empire. Intriguingly, Warrior’s usage was largely restricted to British home waters due to her vast size limiting the availability of dry-docking facilities (Hirsch, 2014: 27-28). As such, she can be seen in terms of practicality and prestige as a symbol of defiance against the French naval buildup.

More recent examples of power struggles ignited by rival powers seeking naval projection as a means of supremacy have included the United States and the Soviet Union in the second half of the twentieth century and the emergence of China as a global power in the twenty-first century (Ross, 2018: 11). The traditional ongoing missions of naval presence, projection ashore, and control of the sea are, according to James George (1989: 47-48), key factors in the successful implementation of contemporary naval power despite the development of more refined naval strategy over the past decades. The importance of these missions in a contemporary context is, it is argued, just as vital when discussing the mid-nineteenth century British navy and Warrior. Warrior alone fulfilled all of these criteria in the fashion that Napoléon III desired for France. In her first commission, however, Warrior was as much a mobile test-bed for emerging technologies and techniques as she was a warship. Indeed, under Cochrane’s command, a number of performance tests and experimentations were undertaken to ascertain the likely performance of the ship in action.

The most important aspects of Warrior’s performance that were tested were things such as her engine and boiler performance, coal consumption, rudder turning arc and propeller, as well as stability and seaworthiness in a variety of weather conditions⁹. Whereas these figures provide us with a wealth of technical data related to Warrior through which we could write a narrative or build a comparative analysis with warships of the time, we are also able to construct a much more nuanced argument related to geopolitics and imperial rivalry at the time if we consider the data in terms of the history of technology. So too, by extension, in considering Warrior and the physical elements she was made of as aspects of material culture which had meaning and social perspectives far beyond the practical implication of a state-of-the-art warship¹⁰. See Table 1, below, for a comparison of Warrior and Gloire.

As the pinnacle of naval architecture at the time, Warrior contributed to the mystique of the Victorian “black battle fleet”, characterised by the iron-hulled warships of the Royal Navy painted black¹¹. The Victorian age represents the era when the British Empire was able to use its fleet to project power across the globe with comparatively few competitors on the same scale. The fact that Britain’s Warrior had eclipsed France’s Gloire only a year after her launch played into the mythic narrative of Britain’s superiority at sea. The appearance of Warrior thus played a powerful role as a symbol at home and abroad. Advancements in warship technology have historically engendered anxiety among rival nations, precipitating a potential naval arms race driven by concerns over military parity and strategic advantage. As one nation develops and deploys increasingly sophisticated warships with enhanced capabilities in terms of speed, firepower, and defensive systems, it triggers apprehension and insecurity among its adversaries.

The fear of being outmatched or vulnerable to naval superiority prompts rival nations and empires to embark on their own programs of naval modernization and expansion, seeking to maintain or regain military balance. This competitive dynamic can escalate tensions as each side perceives the need to continually enhance its naval capabilities to counter potential threats posed by its adversaries. The resultant naval arms race not only exacerbates geopolitical tensions but also imposes significant economic burdens as resources are diverted towards the development and procurement of advanced warships. Moreover, the heightened militarization of maritime domains increases the risk of conflict escalation and undermines prospects for diplomatic resolution. Therefore, while advances in warship technology signify progress in naval warfare, they also have the potential to exacerbate security dilemmas and fuel geopolitical rivalries, leading to the proliferation of naval armaments and the perpetuation of maritime tensions. Such circumstances may arise in the case of Warrior rendering Gloire obsolete or HMS Dreadnought (1906) superseding all pre-Dreadnought battleships and ultimately leading to an arms race.

The nineteenth century was, in technological terms, a time of continuous naval innovation and transformation. This was a period that progressed from the wooden sail-powered lineships of Nelson’s navy to steam-driven iron-hulled battleships. Such was the level of change that there was the potential for major disruptions in the established naval order that Britain dominated. The French, in particular, determined to challenge British hegemony, initially viewed a massive increase in its naval budget as a good investment in geopolitical terms, with their intent to rival Britain. However, the failure of the French navy to play a decisive role in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 meant that the investment’s return was questioned. So too, due to the failure of French technological advances to dent Britain’s superiority at sea (Canvel, 2018: 93-94). Warrior is a good example here. The French appear to have recognised the importance of naval power after the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, but their path towards deciding what this should look like was uncertain. Canvel has discussed the matter at length, with his appraisal of the French naval establishment’s flirtation with the Jeune École school of thought being very interesting. The Jeune École’s thrust was to move away from the losing battle of attempting to compete with Britain in terms of raw numbers of capital ships, and to instead focus on challenging Britain through technological and strategic innovation. Lessons learnt from the utility of floating box batteries during the Crimean War (1853-56) helped to inform them of the need to diversify their fleet. It was, however, not until the French realised that they could not necessarily compete with Britain in terms of numbers or technology outright that they viewed the future of their naval success in terms of commerce interdiction (ibid.: 100-105).

Commerce raiding was nothing new when it came to naval power projection and maritime force, with there being notable examples throughout various periods of history¹². This, of course, opens up the potential for debate about the legality of naval vessels attacking merchant shipping to cause economic harm to their adversaries. The perpetrator may view the act as an acceptable practice against legitimate targets, in accordance with the historic act of privateering. The victims, however, would likely complain that this was an illegal act akin to piracy. This is also a complicated matter as there is an ongoing unresolved debate as to what piracy may be defined as. Laurence Martin (1985: 5-6) has discussed how naval power is critically conditioned by the legal status of sea lanes and the open sea, with warships serving as formidable floating pieces of sovereign territory that can project national interests at home and in the various imperial spheres.

The raiding of rival powers’ economic assets would certainly be a valuable action for belligerents, and it is something that shall be touched upon in the in the following section. According to McMahon (2017: 15), maritime trade warfare, also called commerce warfare, is a direct intervention to neutralise an enemy’s commercial shipping in an effort to disrupt the enemy’s economy. McMahon also notes that up until the twentieth century, close blockades of enemy ports were common practice. Into the twentieth century, however, the concept of a distant blockade became the norm due to technologies such as submarines and torpedoes disrupting the established field of warfare. The case study of Warrior is curious here due to her immense technological superiority at the time of her launch, eclipsing Gloire in terms of both strength and speed. She was at once the fastest and strongest warship afloat, and incorporated new technologies that were pushing the Royal Navy towards the later twentieth-century model. As such, she may be seen as innovative in terms of both construction and future strategy.

INNOVATIONS TO NAVAL ARCHITECTURE AND COCHRANE

There are many classical ways in which we could seek to classify innovation, all of which have merit in their own right. Schumpeter’s (1947: 151) interpretation of innovation opined that it is the act of the “doing of new things or the doing of things that are already being done in a new way”. It would follow that this could apply to processes as well as finished products, in agreement with Crossan and Apaydin’s (2010: 1155) thoughts on the matter. Garcia and Calantone (2002: 112) built their understanding of innovation around the premise that it is not only objects that are innovations, but that the social structures underpinning them are just as important. To them, innovation is a continuous process of norms being challenged and new ideas being tested. Christensen’s vision, meanwhile, suggests that breakthrough innovations are often initially rejected by potential markets, often allowing important innovations to stagnate¹³. Crucially, for the purposes of this study of Warrior, it is Fligstein’s (2021: 272) interpretation that innovation depends on actors with the relevant knowledge being enabled to implement change. In the case of Warrior, the wider geopolitical situation involving the French naval build-up spurred the British into action, but it was the ability and skills of British naval architects and shipwrights that allowed Warrior to be constructed. The organisation of the myriad of individual material components into an organised system, incorporated into larger systems again, reinforced what Hindle (1966: 10-11, 28-31) believed about the primacy of spatial thinking in nineteenth-century technology, latterly claiming a certain primacy for physical objects when viewed through the historical lens.

The advent of the increased focus on mechanisation and modern technologies towards the end of the nineteenth century represented the beginning of a slow yet major shift in naval design, culminating in the use of computer-aided design (hereinafter CAD) in the twentieth century. Prior to the construction of Warrior, there was a much simpler design phase. Calculations of the proposed design’s fixed weights would be drafted, with fittings such as guns and armour calculated in parallel. This was followed by the sketch design and layout, with only minor changes then being feasible unless a major fault was discovered (Brown, 1995: 59-61, 62-63). Design at this point was highly creative and required a great deal of innovation and spatial awareness of the individual components that made up the warship. The main challenge facing naval architects employed by the Admiralty was to provide a cost-effective warship which would stand up to the scrutiny of the various boards and committees which would have to approve the design and costing. Funds and politics, therefore, often had a hand in stalling innovation. Where Britain, in particular, however, had an advantage was in domestic private industry. Private shipyards were often the first to experiment with new designs for commercial shipping and smaller overseas navies, providing a sort of laboratory for naval innovation which the Admiralty could observe from a distance (Sturton, 2018: 215-216). Warrior was a good example of this with her clipper-style prow, iron hull and gingerbread lattice work clearly having been influenced by British trading clippers.

The character of Arthur Cochrane himself also has an interesting role to play in spurring our discussion of naval innovation. Ostensibly, he was the commanding officer of Warrior (1 August 1861 – 22 November 1864) and, therefore, had an intimate working knowledge of the state-of-the-art warship. What is most interesting, however, is that Cochrane also had an extensive personal history as an inventor and mechanical innovator throughout his career. Cochrane’s ingenuity can be seen in his proposed boiler design, a complicated mechanical apparatus that required a strong technical understanding of the individual components which made up the structure¹⁴. The emergence of steam power as a practical option for powering vessels fundamentally changed the nature of warfare at sea, with captains and their crew no longer being at the mercy of the wind. A modern captain would have been wise to try and understand the concept and limitations of his ship’s power plant, but Cochrane appears to have taken this one step further and studied the inner workings for himself and, ultimately, attempted to advance the technology. It was not only in the field of steam engineering that Cochrane is remembered as an innovator though. It was during his tenure as commanding officer of Warrior that modern washing machines were installed in Warrior to provide a means of the engine stokers, in particular, washing the soot out of their clothing¹⁵. This would also have had additional benefits to the entire crew due to the increased hygiene, with navies increasingly recognising the importance of sanitation as the nineteenth century wore on (Smith, 2018: 184).

Cochrane’s influence in improving the design of Warrior can also be seen in his desire to improve her steering performance when under steam power. Warrior was regarded as steering poorly due to her comparatively small rudder in relation to the vessel as a whole¹⁶. As a result, her turning arc was poor, something borne out in the various sea trials she undertook in her first commission¹⁷. Cochrane had complained to the Admiralty about the poor performance of Warrior’s rudder, though he was met with obstruction and disbelief that the rudder could perform as poorly as he claimed. Indeed, they pushed back against his view that a bigger rudder was needed and suggested it would make no difference¹⁸. Faced with an Admiralty board who were unwilling to hear him out and a key part of his steering apparatus not adequate for the ship’s needs, Cochrane was left with few choices. We know that in October 1861, the carpenter aboard HMS Bellerophon, Mr. Bennett, drafted a diagram for a strengthened rudder to be used on Warrior, though she continued to suffer from a poor turning arc¹⁹. What was within Cochrane’s power, however, was to provide as much objective data as he could through the myriad of trial reports that his crew compiled²⁰. Whereas this data may not have been able to provide an immediate fix for Warrior’s rudder, it did serve to provide a wealth of material for naval architects to study and use to improve Britain’s capital-ship building project going forward. The diaries and papers of petty officers from the period can thus shed a great deal of light on naval innovations, with a wonderful selection held at the National Museum of the Royal Navy²¹.

One of Cochrane’s most important ideas in respect of the present study’s interest in innovation is that of his design demonstrating a revolving gun turret fixed on a deck tower, espousing the benefits of flexible direct fire from above²². Although turreted battleships with uniform gun calibres were a development of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the fact that Cochrane envisaged such potential speaks volumes about the possibilities for mechanical innovation that the Victorian age brought. Cochrane, as an active naval officer engaged in theorising about how to advance his field’s technology, also epitomises the kind of innovative social space that this piece seeks to highlight. Indeed, Cochrane might be said to personify the innovator-artist analogy that was put forward by the likes of Ferguson and Hindle²³. Despite Cochrane’s ingenuity, the concept of a revolving armoured turret was not a new one in the nineteenth century. The idea was, however, in need of refinement and did not become a staple of modern navies until the late nineteenth century. Notable examples of designs previously put forward were those of Gillespie (1805), Bloodgood (1807) and Timby (1840s) (Putnam, 2005: 303). The later and more successful Cowper Coles and John Ericsson turrets, discussed by Sadler (1970: 578-579), were further important developments in this area. Ultimately, it was the Coles turret that was deemed to be superior and underwent experimentation by the Royal Navy. However, Coles was initially only permitted to install his turrets on two small coastal defence vessels (ibid.). Such radical construction proposals as fully turreted warships were only truly seen in action when the American shipyards of the United States were motivated to innovate by the onset of war.

Cochrane’s design and Coles’ successful implementation of working prototypes for the navy in 1862 also ran in parallel with developments across the Atlantic Ocean with the American Civil War (12 April 1861 – 26 May 1865). There, a fascinating naval arms race was also active, in tandem with that of the Anglo-French rivalry. One of the most important developments for the proposed turreted vessel was the Union Navy’s USS Monitor. Monitor was an ironclad built for the Union during the Civil War and completed in January 1862. Her distinguishing features were a low ironclad seaboard and a single revolving turret placed atop. She was designed by Theodore Timby, the same man referenced above for his 1840s turret proposal. Monitor is best remembered for her role at the Battle of Hampton Roads on 9 March 1862, when she fought her rival, the Confederate casemate ironclad CSS Virginia, to a standstill. This was an early clash of two differing design ideologies at the time, with the turreted Monitor being matched against the box-battery Virginia. It must be noted that the results of this standoff were inconclusive, with the accepted result being a draw (Simson, 2001: 86; Davis, 1975: 160-164). This may be seen as a useful comparison between our main Gloire and Warrior example, with the smaller and squat Gloire being challenged by the far larger and more elegantly designed Warrior.

Like the British and the French, Union and Confederate naval architects had innovated to produce their own visions for what the future of warship design should look like. It should be noted, however, that these American designs were not yet able to adequately compete with European constructions such as Gloire and Warrior. Built to fight their naval war in a coastal environment, early American ironclads would have suffered badly in the open Atlantic Ocean. Confederate naval strategy, in particular, was reliant on their need to prevent the Union from blockading their harbours (Still, 1961: 330). This is not to say that the rival navies did not attempt to source ironclads from Europe, with the cases of James Dunwoody Bulloch and James North being tasked to purchase or secure construction of ironclads a good example of their working around their limitations (Sullivan, 1987: 12-13). The fact remained, however, that neither side had a particularly reliable ironclad design at the outset of the war, and innovation was constantly needed in order to meet demands (Emerson, 1995: 368-369). The Confederate Navy’s conversion of the merchant steamer Fingal into the ironclad CSS Atlanta demonstrates this, though is also a lesson in how desperation and innovation can lead to both success and failure. The Atlanta has been critiqued as having poor armour protection and very poor conditions for her crew to work in. The intense heat, lack of light and poor ventilation led her to be castigated as “a comfortless, infernal, and God-forsaken ship!!” (ibid.: 373).

CONCLUSION

The history of technology can be loosely described as incorporating a history of specific objects and/or a history of the processes that create or revolve around objects. This study has concerned the British warship, HMS Warrior, in terms of both her place in the history of technology and her role as a powerful signifier of material culture for British naval interests and the British empire in general. If we view technology as a form of symbol or metaphor for the society that produced it, then it may be argued by extension that the objects produced, such as Warrior, may symbolise the traits or values held by that society. We have seen how geopolitical rivalry in Europe, stoked by Napoléon III’s desire to build up the French fleet to match that of the British, led to a naval arms race when the ironclad Gloire was launched. This was a powerful symbol of the French nation’s desire to challenge British naval hegemony. This rivalry was unsurprising given the increasing imperial tensions and entrenchment of colonial claims during the second half of the nineteenth century. In much the same way, Britain’s launching of Warrior the following year was a statement to France and the world that Britain intended to maintain its naval dominance. The sheer size and strength of Warrior in comparison to Gloire underscored this. As Ervan Garrison (1995: 27) has commented of ironclad warships, they were the superweapons of their day. The deployment of Warrior significantly upstaged the French and was a source of great national pride for Britain. This, by extension, also served as a yardstick through which the British empire could lay out its relative strength vis á vis the French.

As we have seen, the role of naval innovation, both on the personal and national scale, had a significant impact on the construction and design of Warships such as our main example, Warrior, and in our brief discussion of early American ironclads. This, too, is tied to the history of technology, with mechanised innovation having played a part in both the ship itself and its many components. Since Warrior underwent a period of restoration in the late twentieth century, we have also been able to view her in the context of museum studies and the display of historical technology. Warrior is an attraction that is open to the public, and she has been faithfully restored based on historical records. This process, in itself, has also served to create new knowledge and understanding in the form of schematics, which were drawn up to assist with the restoration. Warrior also occupies a curious position in that she is a powerful piece of material culture for modern Britain, just as she was for nineteenth-century Britain. She reminds visitors that Britain once ruled a far-flung empire and had the physical means to enforce control over it. Today, she is a reminder of naval heritage and the accomplishments of Victorian naval architects, as well as the importance of bearing witness to colonial legacies. In her prime, of course, she was the ultimate manifestation of British naval supremacy and imperial might.

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_______________________________

¹ Referred to as “Warrior” hereafter.

² See, Oliver Walton, ‘New Kinds of Discipline: The Royal Navy in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century’, in Helen Doe & Richard Harding (eds), Naval Leadership and Management, 1650-1950, pp. 143-56; Mary Jones, ‘Towards a Hierarchy of Management: The Victorian and Edwardian Navy, 1860-1918’, in Helen Doe & Richard Harding (eds), Naval Leadership and Management, 1650-1950, pp. 157-72; David Morgan-Owen, Economic Warfare and the Sea: Grand Strategies for Maritime Powers, 1650-1945, Liverpool University Press (2020); Don Leggett, Shaping the Royal Navy: Technology, Authority and Naval Architecture, c. 1830-1906, Manchester University Press (2015).

³ See, Aldo F. Ordovini, Fulvio Petronio & David M. Sullivan ‘Capital Ships of the Italian Royal Navy, 1860-1918: Part II: Turret/Barbette Ships of the “Duilio, Italia, and Ruggiero di Lauria” Classes’, Warship International, 52(4), (Dec., 2015), pp. 326-49; ‘Capital Ships of the Italian Royal Navy, 1860-1918: Part III: Pre-dreadnought Battleships’, Warship International, 53(4), (Dec., 2016), pp. 303-21; Peter Schenk, Dirk Nottelmann & David M. Sullivan, ‘From Ironclads to Dreadnoughts: The Development of the German Navy 1864-1918: Part II: The German-Built Ironclads, 1868-1902, Warship International, 49(1), (Mar., 2012), pp. 59-84.

⁴ See, Werner Rahn, ‘German Navies from 1848 to 2016: Their Development and Courses from Confrontation to Cooperation’, Naval War College Review, 70(4), pp. 13-47; Christian de Saint Hubert, ‘Early Spanish Steam Warships with Special Emphasis on Screw Frigates and Armoured Frigates and Corvettes (1834-70)’, Warship International, 20(4), pp. 338-67.

⁵ See, Andrew Lambert, HMS Warrior: Victoria’s Ironclad Deterrent, Conway UK (2011); Walter Brownlee, Warrior – The First Modern Battleship, Cambridge University Press (1987); ‘H.M.S. Warrior’, Scientific American, 257(6), (Dec., 1987), pp. 130-7.

⁶ See, Christopher Tilley, ‘Ethnography and Material Culture’, in Paul Atkinson, Amanda Coffey, Sara Delamont, John Lofland & Lyn Lofland (eds), Handbook of Ethnography, London (2001), pp. 258-72; Lieselotte E. Saurma-Jeltsch, ‘About the Agency of Things, of Objects and Artefacts’, in Lieselotte Saurma-Jeltsch & Anja Eisenbeiß (eds), The Power of Things and the Flow of Cultural Transformations: Art and Culture between Europe and Asia, Berlin & Munich (2010), pp. 10-22.

⁷ See, Ken Booth, ‘Roles, Objectives and Tasks: An Inventory of the Functions of Navies’, Naval War College Review, 30(1), pp. 84; 85-93.

⁸ (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 1808 – 9 January 1873). President of France, 1848-1852; Emperor of France, 1852-1870.

⁹ See, RNM 1989/43/47, Record of the Trials of HMS Warrior (17.10.1861. – 19.01.1862.); RNM 1983/316, Table of Consumption of Coal (1861-1863); RNM 1984/447/31, Diagram of Speed and Power (31.10.1861. – 12.11.1861.); RNM 1983/315, Diagram Recording Coal Consumption (27.02.1862).

¹⁰ See also, Charles D. Bendig & Marjo Gauthier-Bérubé, ‘Agency and Structure in Shipbuilding: Practice and Social Learning Perspectives’, Heritage, 6(2), pp. 1444-75; Diego Carabias et al, ‘Ballasting a Mid-19th Century Chilean Navy Armed Transport: Archaeometallurgical Insights into Cast Iron Ingots Recovered from the Barque Infatigable (1855), Heritage, 6(2), pp. 2126-51; Charles E. Orser Jr., ‘Atlantic Material Culture: Boats, Ships, and Navigation’, in An Archaeology of the English Atlantic World, Cambridge University Press, (2018), pp. 189-225.

¹¹ See, G.A. Ballard, ‘The Black Battlefleet: Some Notes on the Mid-Victorian Transformation in Battleship Design’, The Mariner’s Mirror, 15(2), pp. 101-124.

¹² See, Edward Owen Teggin, ‘East India Company Power Projection: Kanhoji Angré and the Anglo-Portuguese Expedition of 1721’, Guerra Colonial, 8 (2021), pp. 121-41; J.L. Anderson, ‘Piracy and World History: An Economic Perspective on Maritime Predation’, Journal of World History, 6(2), pp. 175-99; Roxani Eleni Margariti, ‘Mercantile Networks, Port Cities, and “Pirate” States: Conflict and Competition in the Indian Ocean World of Trade before the Sixteenth Century’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 51(4), pp. 534-77.

¹³ See, Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, Harvard (1997).

¹⁴ See RNM, W 2017/5/8, ‘Captain Cochrane’s Patent Boiler, Designed for Sea-Going Monitors’.

¹⁵ See RNM, W 2018/2/445-447, ‘Details of Ships Crew Combined Washing & Wringing Machine’; W 2018/2/448, ‘Arrangement of Ships Crew Combined Washing & Wringing Machine’.

¹⁶ See RNM 1983/318, ‘HMS Warrior Rudder Diagram’.

¹⁷ See RNM 1983/321, ‘Results of Turning Trials of HMS Warrior’; RNM 1984/447/42, ‘Circle Steaming’.

¹⁸ See, RNM, W 2017/5/2/12, ‘Letter to Cochrane from the Admiralty’.

¹⁹ See RNM, 1984/447/19, ‘Letter About Warrior’s Rudder’.

²⁰ See RNM, 1984/447/29, ‘Undated Rough Notes on the Performance of HMS Warrior on Cruise with HMS Revenge’; RNM 1989/43/47, ‘Record of the Trials of HMS Warrior’; RNM 1984/447/31, ‘Diagram of Speed and Power Developed by HMS Warrior’; RNM 1983/316, ‘HMS Warrior: Table of Consumption of Coal for the Revolution of Engines, with Boilers in use’.

²¹ See, RNM 1987/111, ‘Log Kept by S.E. Akaster of Commission of HMS Warrior’; RNM 1981/149/1, ‘Log Kept by Midshipman H.A.K. Murray’; W 2018/12/8, ‘Logbook of Midshipman Weymas’.

²² See RNM, W 2017/5/21, ‘Diagram of a Gun Revolving on a Fixed Tower’.

²³ See, Eugene S. Ferguson, “Exhibit Reviews: Hall of Power Machinery, Museum of History and Technology, U.S. National Museum (Smithsonian Institution),” TC, 9 (1968), pp. 75-78; Brooke Hindle, Technology in Early America: Needs and Opportunities for Study, University of North Carolina Press (1966), pp. 10-11; 28-31.